The basic idea here was to take a rough cut and predicting Goals For and Against for each team, running that through PythagenPuck to get an approximation of points in the standings, and that plugging in additional points for Shootout Victories and overtime losses (sometimes you lose 4-3 in regulation and get no points, sometimes you lose 4-3 in OT and get one). In the end, it's a combination of seat-of-the-pants guesswork and formulaic balancing, so it's got a whiff of scientific application along with standard barstool bluster.

I guess what surprised me a little bit was seeing Calgary and Florida come out so highly, but the common denominator there is solid goaltending and at least a decent offensive punch. Some of the other teams with confidence in net are crippled with more anemic attacks (like Dallas, Vancouver, Minnesota and New Jersey).

In the Western Conference, it was interesting to see the results of this analysis match up with hunches that I posted a few weeks ago in response to Mirtle's playoff prediction poll. I thought at the time that Colorado would miss out, and that line of reasoning still holds true. I think adding Ryan Smyth only augments an area of the team that was already strong, while the addition of Scott Hannan isn't that much of an upgrade to a defense that lost it's leading +/- player in Ken Klee.

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